Honest question: I haven’t used AI much. Are there any AIs or IDEs that can reliably rename a variable across all instances in a medium sized Python project? I don’t mean easy stuff that an editor can do (e.g. rename QQQ in all instances and get lucky that there are no conflicts). I mean be able to differentiate between local and/or library variables so it doesn’t change them, only the correct versions.
IntelliJ IDEA, if it knows it is the same variable, it will rename it. Usually works in a non fucked up codebase that uses eval or some obscure constructs like saving a variable name into a variable as a string and dynamically invoking it.
Yes, all of JetBrains’ tools handle project-wide renames practically perfectly, even in weirder things like Angular projects where templates may reference variables.
Honest question: I haven’t used AI much. Are there any AIs or IDEs that can reliably rename a variable across all instances in a medium sized Python project? I don’t mean easy stuff that an editor can do (e.g. rename QQQ in all instances and get lucky that there are no conflicts). I mean be able to differentiate between local and/or library variables so it doesn’t change them, only the correct versions.
I’m going to laugh in Java, where this has always been possible and reliable. Not like ai reliable, but expert reliable. Because of static types.
IntelliJ IDEA, if it knows it is the same variable, it will rename it. Usually works in a non fucked up codebase that uses
evalor some obscure constructs like saving a variable name into a variable as a string and dynamically invoking it.For the most part “Rename symbol” in VSCode will work well. But it’s limited by scope.
I use pycharm for this and in general it does a great job. At work we’ve got some massive repos and it’ll handle it fine.
The “find” tab shows where it’ll make changes and you can click “don’t change anything in this directory”
Yes, all of JetBrains’ tools handle project-wide renames practically perfectly, even in weirder things like Angular projects where templates may reference variables.
Just be carerul when refactoring variable names in doc comments, I’ve seen some weird stuff happen there
Not reliably, no. Python is too dynamic to do that kind of thing without solving general program equivalence which is undecidable.
Use a static language, problem solved.
Find and Replace?
that will catch too many false positives